Unbutton your pants and dive right in.

In Which I Make a Big Deal Out of Doors

This morning, I was walking into my office building. There are 2 sets of doors to walk through before you hit the lobby. You know. Like… most… lobbies. (Strong opener, Jess.)

I open the outer door fully. 100 goddamn percent. It’s as open as (pop culture reference involving a vagina, probably).

An older dude is walking toward me, through the inner doors, and holding a giant fuckin’ camera.

I do the normal human thing, and hold the outer door. The one I’m not even done walking through, thus making the door-holding situation almost zero percent inconvenient for me. It would have taken him 2 seconds to walk through, and I would have lost… mmmmaybe 1 second of my life.

But no, because if you’re a dude over 40, you LITERALLY CANNOT FUCKING WALK THROUGH A DOOR BEFORE A WOMAN REGARDLESS OF THE SITUATION, he instead awkwardly moves to the side, even AFTER I’VE BEEN HOLDING THE DOOR FOR A SECOND, so now I have to maneuver around him to get inside, AND he has to re-open the door I was JUST holding the fuck open for him.

Like.

Can we not, anymore? Can we just not?

And then! More door awkwardness happens, less than an hour later.

BACKGROUND INFO: My floor has—actually fuck it lemme take a picture for you.

My photography career is on indefinite hold

So I’m walking through this door, heading toward the other door on the other side of this infinite fuckin’ ‘80s hotel lobby of a hallway.

At this moment, a dude is walking into those doors. He happens to see me out of the corner of his eye, approx. 9493073075 feet away.

I saw him debating whether or not he should wait for me. I saw, and for the first time in my atheistic life, I prayed. I prayed for him to just keep walking.

Some factors:

There are like 4 different directions I could have been going. Elevator, bathroom, stairwell, OR the fucking door he was holding. He had no idea which one I was heading for when he made this choice.

Obviously, it is VERY FAR AWAY. It’s like, a 15-second walk? WAY TOO LONG TO HOLD A DOOR.

You have to swipe your badge when you go through a door, REGARDLESS of whether it’s open, and the badge thing is, of course, nearly eclipsed by the open door, such that holding a door for someone makes it ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO SWIPE YOUR BADGE.

If you get caught not swiping your badge, you get written up for… tailgating, or some other bullshit corporate term?

There was literally no way holding that door would make my life any easier. And, this bro works here. I’ve seen him dozens of times. He knows this shit. It’s not like he’s New To Doors In My Office.

So, perhaps after processing all of the above, he decided against it, and walks away. Far enough that he is completely out of sight.

PRAISE THE LORD. I BELIEVE. I TRULY BELIEVE.

…and then. And THEN.

He WALKED BACK TO THE DOOR AND STARTED HOLDING IT AGAIN.

I was still at least 5 seconds of walking time away from that door.

Like.

Why?

Why do you have to make it weird for EVERYONE?

I’m well familiar with the awkward, how-long-should-I-hold-this door sitch. It’s the worst for everyone involved. Mutual social regret occurs every time.

But this one… I mean, this one was extreme. BOTH of them were.

The camera guy was like, holding bulky shit! And I was already holding the door! And he just REFUSED to walk through it!

And I’m supposed to like, thank him, too? That’s the “polite” thing to do. Even though he made my life more awkward and wasted more of my time.

With camera guy? I knew I was supposed to say thank you, but I couldn’t even control the sigh that escaped me. Like, FUCK. CHIVALRY ISN’T DEAD, I GUESS, IN THE SENSE THAT YOU’RE WILLING TO INCONVENIENCE A WOMAN TO PUT ON A SHOW OF HOW CHIVALROUS YOU ARE.

To be perfectly goddamn clear, I don’t care about the supposed implications of my womanly inability to open a door, or whatever. I KNOW it’s not that you think I can’t open a fuckin’ door. That’s the dumbest shit ever. Of course you know I can open a fuckin’ door.

This door-holding shit is just behavior that has been trained into you since childhood. I’m not OFFENDED by it. I completely understand it.

I just, quite frankly, already hate the awkwardness of doors, and I don’t need you making them even harder to walk through.

And hey. Since I have your attention, let’s talk about one more thing.

If you’re standing in front of me in the elevator, and getting off on the same floor as me?

GET OFF THE FUCKING ELEVATOR.

Don’t try to awkwardly move yourself BEHIND me so you can pretend to hold the door forme. You know, the door that CLEARLY HAS A SENSOR TO STOP IT FROM CRUSHING ME.

That means your dramatic gesture of throwing an arm out in front of said door, like you’re fuckin’ Indiana Jones throwing his hat into the… I haven’t seen that movie in long enough to remember how the scene goes?

My point is, you’re not Indiana Jones. You’re an asshole who doesn’t understand that elevator door censors register the existence of all men/women/body parts equally, so throwing your arm out like a martyr does exactly as much good as me walking through the fucking door.

Which, to be clear, would have been goddamn easier for both of us.

My point in a nutshell: If you truly want to treat me like a lady, err on the side of hitting me in the face with a door. It’s better for everyone that way.

Addendum

While getting ready to publish this, someone sat next to me at the bar. NO BIG DEAL, right? Of course not.

Welp, I’m holding onto some menus that I don’t need, and I see that she doesn’t have any. So I politely push the menus toward her and say, “Hey, you can use these if you want!”

“… Uh… thanks.”

I immediately realized I’d made a mistake.

I watched her set down her laptop, her coffee (that she purchased elsewhere), and her snacks (that she purchased elsewhere), and then politely wait to push the menus back over to me, just long enough to keep me from feeling like an asshole.